Waiting Game
by MondayVibes
Summary: His eyes dart toward the brass telephone crouched atop his desk, and he wills it to end its hours of silence, to finally, finally, finally crack the tense, cold office air with its shrill screams. If he's honest with himself, though, Roy Mustang knows full well that he's never been good at waiting.


**Disclaimer:** These toys all belong to Arakawa-san. I just borrow them sometimes so that I can play make-believe with them.

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 **Prompt:** Start a story with "he stared hard at the table…"

 **Author's Note:** So I cheated. Sue me.

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 **Waiting Game**

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He stares hard at the surface of his desk, traced the fine whorls with his eyes, follows the sharp scratch that slashed across its polished surface before disappearing beneath a neatly stacked pile of folders. He must have done something to cause that damage—tossed a pen carelessly across the desk as he left one night, perhaps, or else pushed the telephone away from him to conclude a decidedly exasperating conversation.

Without his permission, his eyes dart toward the brass telephone crouched atop the wood. There are smudges stamped across the gleaming metal, and a few places where the brass has become tarnished, and a few dents that he knows must have come from throwing the receiver into its cradle with far too much force.

He stares at it, wills it to end its hours of silence, to finally, finally, _finally_ crack the tense, cold office air with its shrill screams. Resolutely, it remains silent.

He swallows the curse on his lips, pushes his chair away from the desk. His body is almost quivering with the adrenaline thrumming in his veins, and his legs feel weak and numb, but he still manages to climb to his feeta and drag himself the few paces to one of the oversized windows.

It's pitch black outside, and all he can make out is his own face; it's set and stony, jaw tight, eyes hard and wide and weary from all the waiting. If he's honest with himself, Roy Mustang knows full well he's never been good at waiting.

And to be forced into such a role now; to have to sit and pace and let his mind run rampant…

Sharp, icy tendrils reach out from the window, wrap around his stomach, his chest, his neck, tighten until he can't breathe, can't do anything more than focus on the _what ifs_ and the _surely nots_ and the prayers to gods he's sneered at since the nightmare that was Ishval. His reflection curls his lips into a snarl, and a wordless shout passes through his teeth like powdered glass.

The icy tendrils break as he pushes himself away from the black window, chime and sing as they fall to the floor. The clarion noise jolts in his mind—it's the phone! It's the call he's been waiting for!—and he nearly throws himself across his own desk in his fervor to wrap his fingers around the receiver before realizing that he's heard nothing at all.

His fingers feel cold and numb, and they freeze atop the polished wood of his desk. His heart drops back down into his chest, hammers frantically against the underside of his breast bone. Every beat sounds like a plea—find him, find him, find him—and they echo in his ears, louder and louder, half-order and half-accusation. And he has to _do_ something—can't just stand here in his office like some army wife—but there's nothing he _can—_

The tidy pile of reports on his desk scatter beneath his hand, and the pages within flutter to the ground like so many wounded birds. His eyes turn away from the mess on the floor, fix themselves on the phone, glare at it as though the unrelenting coldness of his gaze could force a scream from it. Still, it remains resolutely silent.

Damnit. Damnit damnit—

"Damnit, Maes!" The words burst from deep within his chest before he even realizes they were there. But at least they're red hot. At least they're melting the ice in his stomach, bringing some paltry semblance of feeling back to his fingers, burning his throat and scorching his tongue as they push their way free—

"Call me back already! This isn't fucking funny anymore!"

It was _never_ fucking funny—the late night phone call from an unsecured line, the rushed seriousness of his best friend's normally jovial voice, the echoing noise that had been so loud the receiver had whined in protest. The sudden, eerie, stomach-wrenching silence. Even Maes, the incorrigible jokester and mirthful man that he was, knew better than to even think about such a prank.

"Hurry up, Maes! I know you're fine, so get your ass in gear and pick up the phone…"

No. Even if Maes _had_ been enough of an idiot to pull off such a tasteless prank, he would have known the game was up when Roy had shouted himself hoarse into the receiver, called his name over and over again, felt the sharp notes of desperation catch against the single syllable until it nearly choked him.

"You promised. You promised you'd work below me and help push me to the top. This isn't funny at all, and I know you have to be joking because you don't fucking break your promises. Not to me. So hurry up and call me already…"

The dull, steady tone of a dead phone line had cut him off; a useless reciprocity for all of his shouting, for the orders-commands-pleas to just _answer him already_ , for the panic that had taken hold of his mind with skeletal fingers.

And so, with that panic wailing in his mind, he'd acted. Depressed the switch hook with one trembling finger, waiting for too many too-long seconds for the phone to reconnect, barked at the hapless secretary on the other end to put him through to Central's Investigations department. Squeezed the receiver until his knuckles turned white and waited again, counting the chimes of the call going through. One, then again, then a third…

Too many. Far too many.

Six, seven, eight times…

Another secretary, this one from Central Command's general switchboard, asking if he'd like to leave a message; a barked out response betraying far too much about the frenetic thoughts bubbling in his mind that didn't matter _so long as Maes was okay_. The order to have the MPs comb the area around Central Command, find Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. No excuses. No exceptions.

The sudden sound of movement. The tumble of words from her lips to someone in the background. A promise to keep him informed of any developments. The damnable hum of a dead phone line in his ear.

Then… the wait.

The fucking _wait_.

He can't see the phone anymore, he realizes dully. It's shattered into a thousand fractals, each shimmering with the pallid, piercing light that cut through his lifeless office. But his hands, they're trembling, so he presses them against the polished wood of his desk until they whimper a protest.

"Come on, Maes. Please… Think of Gracia. Think of _Elicia_ …"

And then, finally— _finally_ —the piercing shriek of the phone erupts, shattering the silence of the room, bouncing off the black windows behind him, echoing in his ears, and his heart stutters as he lunges for the receiver, drags it to his ear.

"Colonel Mustang," he snaps, and his voice sounds just like ice cracking, and his mind is trying to figure out just what to say to Maes, the complete _asshole_ , for putting him through this—

"Good evening, Colonel."

All he can do for a moment is blink, stare stupidly at the phone's base, at the tarnished brass and dirty smudges still glimmering in the pallid light, as his brain mumbles three simple words.

That's not Maes.

"I apologize for not getting in touch with you earlier," Armstrong says, and his deep voice is low and rough like gravel. "However, I felt it necessary to secure the situation here before I contacted you."

The situation. That… that doesn't sound good. His legs go numb, and he practically collapses into his chair. "Understandable, Major. Would you care to explain the details of this 'situation'?"

For the length of two too-long, too-short heartbeats, he's waiting again, listening to the faint susurrus of white noise as it whispers through miles of phone lines. Something sharp and cold is grabbing hold of his fingers, wrapping around the palms of his hands, burying itself beneath his skin to burrow deep, deep, deep…

And with a sharp, sudden shock of understanding, he knows, just as he knows Maes' birthday and his own hate of cold weather, what Armstrong is about to say.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, sir… His body was found in a phone booth close to Central Command. I'm sorry."

In a phone booth…

"I see. Thank you for informing me, Major. Please keep me apprised of any developments."

Trying to call him, to warn him…

"Of course, Colonel. I'll speak to you soon, then."

… of something so dangerous that his life had been snuffed out like a spark in a midwinter storm.

The coldness in his fingertips is so overwhelming that he can barely place the receiver back in its cradle. It's deep within the marrow of his bones now, freezing the blood in his veins as it spreads through his body, twining up his forearms, down his shoulders. It steals his warmth with greedy fingers as it goes, leaving him weak, limbs hanging lifelessly, chest heaving for breath as it burrows into his ribs and goes deeper still.

It wraps around his heart, squeezes tight until, finally, he shatters.

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FIN

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 **Author's Note:** So, this was _supposed_ to be a happy whatever story, and it was _supposed_ to involve Edward and Riza, but then we had to put one of the kitties down and, if that wasn't bad enough, put one of the dogs down not even four days later, and... misery loves company, I guess.

Anyway, this hasn't been edited or anything, so I'm sorry for the inevitable typos.


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